this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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Before one of OP's other posts on this topic was removed as misinformation, I asked under that post what Biden could possibly have done aside from pardoning all federal convictions for possession, requesting the DEA to reschedule marijuana, and introducing a bill for full federal legalization which the Republicans defeated (all three of which happened).
Crickets man. (I actually learned since then that it's a little more complex -- it actually seems like maybe Biden was opposed to the full legalization bill that Schumer was pushing, and there was definitely some level of Democratic opposition in the senate. So maybe that piece of the criticism is legit, IDK, but OP never brought that stuff up to me when I asked what Biden should do.)
That conversation was actually the exact point that I became confident that OP's just here to shit on Biden and specifically Biden for whatever reason, and any concordance that emerges between what he's saying and the truth is purely accidental, and he knows it.
(Also, fun fact Matt Gaetz switched sides to join with 2 other House Republicans to vote for weed legalization.)
It's too bad that he's just trying to shit on Biden. I have always been pro legalization.
Honestly I kind of like that the states are going back to having radically different systems. That was the way it was supposed to be -- like if you think weed should be legal, or illegal, then try it out, and everyone can watch it in practice and see how it works.
I don't like that it's so polarized to only two big centers of gravity and one of them is Naziism but the idea of it being a variety seems like more of the idea of what the US was supposed to be.
States rights: Republicans get what they want and Democrats don't have to fight for anything nationwide.
? I am confuse
States' rights in this particular case led to marijuana legalization a bunch of places which was pretty far from what the Republicans wanted
And a bunch of Democrats have been fighting for full federal legalization for a few years now. I'm aware there's a mythology that it's every Democrat's fault that 99% of Republicans voted in lock-step against it, which meant that little slivers of Democratic opposition were able to defeat it, but I'm not convinced by that logic
I'm aware that some Republicans use "states' rights" as a fig leaf for their awful policies but how on Earth are you trying to apply it in that way to this particular issue
That's because you didn't read the single sentence I wrote.
I said nationwide. You responded with state level policy.
Sure they have.
Because Democrats are content to let Republicans curtail rights for good people in red states, as long as they don't have to worry in blue states.
Yes, I'm aware of the narrative. I'm saying it doesn't match reality (in this case -- as a general statement about the Democrats of the Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton brand, I fully agree with it + how it's responsible for a lot of the lack of support for Democrats from the people who've been getting screwed).
I don't really know how to lay out my evidence for my statement other than what I've already done... if you're just planning on repeating the narrative back at me, IDK what to tell you.
All you did was divert from national policy to state policy and say that Democrats are totally working on it on the national level without anything to back it up.
"We'll look into it" isn't doing shit.
Dude, why is everything a big fuckin argument with you. Here's what I said:
That's my opinion on the federal level. There are little breadcrumbs of things in there like "the full legalization bill that Schumer was pushing" that you can look up if you want to learn more about the facts behind it. You can form your own opinions, and I'm fine with that.
If you're not interested in learning, and just interested in us shouting "YES IT IS" "NO IT ISN'T" "YES IT IS" at each other, I'll pass.
(Actually - if you want to learn about the different legalization / decriminalization bills, and what the differences between them were / how they each fared and which ones if any Biden actually supported / things like that, and then tell me, then that'd be great, because I started reading but it was complex and I didn't completely sort it out. But if it's all going to be colored by this axiom you seem to operate under that everything Biden does is automatically a betrayal and there's no need to learn anything more then I am not interested.)
I think what my attitude boils down to is that the Democratic Party has fundamentally earned my distrust, and that has only worsened since Biden took office.
After Biden didn't fire the parliamentarian in order to get the minimum wage hike passed, I cannot trust that his hands are tied when his supporters say they are. As far as I'm concerned, Democrats tie their own hands. When it's something that centrist Democrats want to do, his hands are utterly free.
You are taking Democrats at their word when they say they are powerless. I don't do that.
Why, what happened with the minimum wage hike? Why do you say that firing the parliamentarian would have led to it passing?
Did you miss the part up above where I specifically said that I agree with your assessment, as applied to most of the Democrats (the Nancy Pelosi brand)?
The parliamentarian could have been replaced with one that would have accepted that the minimum wage could be raised via reconciliation.
I didn't miss the bit where you acted like Biden has done all he can do about cannabis.
Sorry, I am done with this conversation. You can scroll back up and see multiple times where I say it seems to me that criticism of Biden / Democrats on aspects of this issue seems legit (or possibly legit) to me. If you are so eager to argue that you're just going to tell me I "acted like" I believe something I'm saying the opposite of, just so you can keep on having an argument about it, I am even less interested in that than I was uninterested before.
This is you acting like Biden has done everything he can, like I said. You keep reinforcing my decision to never expect honesty from you.
Bro who fuckin hurt you and made you expect that people go on the internet and just lie about what they believe as a fakeout to trick other people on the internet
In the very next sentence, after I quoted myself saying that from some time ago, I said:
I am not lying. I am not maliciously misrepresenting what I believe. I am not deliberately trying to engage in a conversation from a point of view other than the one I actually hold. I 100% honestly do not know why you think a person would do that, or how common it is on the internet, but it is not what I am doing for any reason whatsoever.
I don't see the point of talking if you're going to tell me what I believe, and then why the imaginary viewpoint you've assigned to me is wrong. I don't need to be involved for that process to take place.
Decades of being lied to by my own party followed by years of being called everything from a fascist to a tankie for daring to be less than enthusiastic about it.
I looked into this and found this legal sidebar somewhat informative.
In classic Biden/dem fashion, while it’s true he has done something that could lead towards delivering on his campaign promise, it’s comically little and falls far short of his full power. Why hasn’t he tried issuing executive orders to legalize or reschedule and force opponents of legalization to crawl out of the woodwork in a lawsuit? Alternatively, the DEA is part of the executive branch. He could immediately replace directors there with those who will implement this policy - why hasn’t this been done?
Biden literally threw up his hands and said “awww but my allies in Congress won’t let me do it.” Disingenuous at best.
I mean it's the classic strategy. The reason everyone accuses them of doing fucking nothing is because there's always a throw it to congress mentality, then congress is inevitably deadlocked by like two guys because of the way the system is set up, and then whenever it isn't deadlocked, suddenly there's some other internal opposition, until it can be deadlocked again in the next 15 minutes. People at this point want other more theoretical measures enacted, like when people were talking about putting abortion clinics on federal land or in national parks. I don't even think stuff like that would be a bad play. Even if it wasn't necessarily successful, it'd do a hell of a lot to show that there's something more being done than the normal state of affairs, which is exactly what people want.
Precisely. We deserve someone who will fight for us, and do everything possible to enact what they believe in (and what we voted for) even if it’s not the ideal solution. This milquetoast bullshit just isn’t going to get the votes anymore, sorry establishment dems but after 40 years enough is enough.
For one administration after another, all we get is “that’s just no longer a priority,” “we’ll leave it to Congress for a bipartisan compromise,” “the senate parliamentarian won’t let us,” “Manchin and Sinema aren’t actually democrats,” or my personal favorite: “we can’t because the republicans will yell at us.” This is wrong and it’s absolutely infuriating. It’s made 10x worse when all we ever hear about progressive ideas is “well how you gonna pay for that?!” The answer to this is glaringly obvious - we pay for it the same way we pay for tax cuts for the rich, or funds to bomb and kill brown children in the middle east. And just like those initiatives, we make it happen no matter what it takes - and if you don’t like it, you can vote us out of office come November.
This would be completely accurate if you took the "Biden/" part out of it. I know it's a popular myth that Biden is part of this pattern, but in actuality he did:
He tried to do more on all fronts, but it's far from comical and the fact that he got that much done over stiff Republican resistance is to me pretty fuckin impressive. Example -- he tried to forgive half a trillion dollars of student loan debt through some direct executive action, and it went to the Supreme Court and they told him no.
Like I said though, I think marijuana is actually one isolated instance where that criticism that he wasn't actually trying to support full legalization / wasn't doing as much as he could to get it done might be halfway warranted. But to me that's more of an exception to his usual pattern.